umbilical cord question

My son is 12 days old. I decided to give him a sponge bath or 2 not thinking about the umbilical cord. Went to the dr. yesterday and she said the cord doesn't look like it's coming off anytime soon b/c I got it wet....

Well...today it's hanging by a thread but there is a white "pus" inside towards the lower part of the belly-button.

does anyone know...is this the start of an infection or is this normal? As of yesterday (and today) there is no smell to it.

I have a call into th dr. but was curious -did anyone have a similar experience?

TIA.

Re: umbilical cord question

we had a little bit of white puss-like stuff right when the cord was about to drop off (a couple days before-couple days after).

I just put some ethanol on it every time we did a diaper change. it never got smelly or infected. Eventually, it went away. we just kept spong bathing until the belly button looked completely healed

Re: umbilical cord question

Rylan had this around the time it fell off. I just left it alone and it healed fine.

Re: umbilical cord question

the dr can cortirize(sp) it as well

Re: umbilical cord question

My son has had puss in his belly button. The pediatrician saw him the day after it fell off and asked me to bring him in 3 days later if it looked ***** still, which I did. He put some kind of ointment on it and it seems to be drying up now. I have to bring him back next week and he'll let me know then if I can give him a real bath.

Re: umbilical cord question

Thank you so much for your replies. It's so funny how much I forgot from my first one.

I feel like I'm back to being THE biggest worry wart about everything!